Thomas Torgersen

Arbeider med

My research area in the Animal Welfare group is how fish interact with their complex and time varying surroundings, using experimental studies and mathematical simulation models.

Fish respond to their environment (e.g. temperature, handling routines, feed composition, aggressive interactions with conspecifics) and to changes in their environment with physiological, cognitive and behavioural responses, and these different responses are interconnected. Of special interest to me are coping and adaptation processes, like acclimation, habituation and learning. Key points in my approach to this field of research are:
• Address the complexity at the process level, i.e. to use analytical, mathematical models that formalize and bring together mechanistic understandings of the processes involved, rather than just looking for identifiable patterns in the data.
• To not only identify the presence of different processes, but also to identify their relevance to fish experiencing environments with a given variability by estimating their rate (are the adaptation processes fast enough to keep track with the variability the fish experiences?) and their capacity (does e.g. acclimation fully, partially or marginally counteract the effect of an environmental change?